


Skeleton Me

by dokidoki_to_kurakura



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2018-02-15
Packaged: 2018-12-05 03:59:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11569863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dokidoki_to_kurakura/pseuds/dokidoki_to_kurakura
Summary: Levi returns to work for Professor Hanji at the University of Sina and is duped into socialising with the new dean Erwin Smith.





	1. Soft Shock

**Author's Note:**

  * For [everythingshiny](https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingshiny/gifts).



> I wrote this last year in my head while commuting by bus three hours a day to work. I was obsessed with the Yeah Yeah Yeah's album "It's Blitz!" and the two became entangled. 
> 
> Everythingshiny is responsible for pushing this out of my head and onto paper and encouraging me to FLOOR IT. I left tumblr and effectively the fandom after last summer (we all know what happened last summer) but her fic The Companion kept pulling me back.

**Chapter One : Soft Shock**

_"Well it's a sharp shock to your soft side..."_

 

Hanji first mentions Erwin Smith while Levi is cleaning their shared office at the University of Sina's Research Institute. A long line of blue painter’s tape divides the room in two: On the left is Levi's desk, file cabinet, bookshelf, and chair and on the right is the mountain of paper and dust and phone chargers that is Hanji's work space. Normally Levi does not stray to the other side of the tape, but today is his first day back to work after a sabbatical and spores have developed in his absence. The window is open despite the February chill.

"I could have sworn you were a molecular biologist, not a fucking botanist." Levi's voice is slightly muffled behind the white surgeons mask he wears whenever he's cleaning or riding public transportation. He taps a mug filled with mould against the metal dustbin a few times before giving up and tossing the whole thing away.

"Mycologist."

"What?"

Hanji looks up from her computer screen, glasses somehow askew despite being tightly rubber-banded to her head. "Botanists study vascular and flowering plants while mycologists study fungi. Although traditionally--"

Levi silences her by making as much noise as possible when removing the bin liner and tying it off.

Hanji rocks back and forth on the large yellow plastic yoga ball she uses as a desk chair until she's facing Levi. "You're more uptight than usual today."

"I'm not uptight, I just practice basic hygiene." Now he's inspecting the bottom of the metal trashcan. "When was the last time you cleaned your bin?"

"Trash cans are for dirtying, no one actually cleans them."

Levi's eyes narrow.

"Okay, so when..." Hanji's frantically scans the small office, trying to find some literal and virtual dirt on the other side of the room or Levi himself but failing. She changes course. "When was the last time you wore the same trousers twice without washing?"

"When was the last time you washed your hair?"

Hanji removes her glasses, bits of hair sticking to the band, and tidies her ponytail. "You shouldn't wash it as much in winter. Actually, the natural oils are stripped--"

"Bullshit."

"When was the last time you've gotten laid?"

Hanji can just make out Levi's disgusted expression behind his surgeon's mask.  "I don't see how my sex life will make this office less of a biohazard."

"What happened to that poor little grad student that followed you around? Eric-with-an-E, was it?"

"How--How else would you spell Eric? It was 'Eren-with-an-E' and I am not taking advantage of some love-sick 22 year old...." He flops his hand back and forth like a drowning fish before settling on the word "man child."

Hanji feigns nonchalance by pivoting her yoga ball back toward her computer screen but it squeaks terribly. "You know who you should meet? While you were gone we got a new dean called Erwin Smith who--"

"No."

 

 

* * *

 

 

The second time Hanji name drops Erwin, she and Levi are sitting in the library cafe a few days later, hunched over their laptops amongst the students while their office is fumigated for black mould. Levi gets a few strange looks from the barista when he orders a teapot of hot water and even Hanji struggles to keep a straight face when he pulls out his own tin of leaves and metal tea infuser from his messenger bag.

"Just because you've poisoned our office doesn't mean I have to drink bagged Lipton's like some sort of thug."

Hanji hides her smile behind her mug of coffee. "I never knew tea was a thug's drink of choice."

"Lipton's is for idiots who can't tell tea from piss." He pours the hot water carefully over the dried leaves in the strainer, then checks his watch to insure optimal brewing time.

Hanji makes a noncommittal noise and waits until Levi has had a chance to brew, cool, and savour enough Lapsang Souchong to return to civility before dropping her bomb.

"So guess who's doing the Aaltonen Memorial lecture tonight?"

"Who?"

Grinning, she leans forward, close enough that Levi can see the grease on the lenses of her glasses. "That guy I was telling you about, Erwin Smith--"

"No."  

"But he's super tall and blond and smart and Mike says--"

"No."

"If I wasn't already married to Moblit--"

"Hanji."

Levi's voice is almost a growl. Realising she's within striking distance, Hanji leans back into her chair and mumbles an apology.

"Sorry." Levi leans forward and gently removes her glasses to clean the lenses with a napkin. "Why are you pushing this?" His voice is low and without acidity. Hanji sits still as if a wild bird was feeding from her hand while he replaces her glasses. He even takes time to adjust the elastic band so that it sits comfortably under her ponytail before sitting back into his chair.

"Mike and I just thought you and Erwin would, you know, hit it off."

"Are you two trying to get me laid again?"

"What?? No! Of course not!" She cringes mentally at the memory of the Petra Project she and Mike attempted a few years back and swiftly changes tactics. "We just thought it would be good for you to meet some new people."

“We both know that’s not true.” He smiles just slightly, his attention back to his cup of tea. He tries to catch an errant tea leaf, but the surface tension of the tea keeps pushing it off his spoon. "Have I really been that bad since I got back?"

With that rare display of humility, Hanji has to finally accept defeat. "Well, will you at least meet Mike and I afterwards for drinks? We're going to take the train down to the quay."

Levi is finally able to drag the leaf up the side of his teacup and deposits it on the saucer. "Yeah, yeah, I'll go."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Hanji and Mike are late.

Levi sits in the back corner of the bar, nursing a beer and flipping through messages on his phone. Hanji had texted 'Running late-- save our usual table!' twenty minutes ago but still hadn't managed to show up. The bar is poorly lit, slightly smoky, and populated with loud, obnoxious college students. Levi keeps his eyes on his phone, texting himself in order to look occupied, so he doesn't notice the handsome, blond titan of a man approaching until he can smell his cologne. Sandalwood.

Levi looks up for only a moment, hoping the man would realise his mistake and leave, but he is met with a warm smile instead. The six foot and something man towers over Levi, posed like a GQ model with his hands casually in the trouser pockets of what Levi assumes is a very expensive suit.

"Might you be Professor Hanji's assistant?"

"I am." Levi pockets his phone and folds his arms across his chest.

"Could I trouble you--"

Levi immediately knows where this is going so he cuts the man off to save Hanji the trouble when she arrives. "Look, I'm sure your bratty kid deserved whatever grade she gave him so just accept it and go back to playing football with the rest of the Kennedy's, okay?"

The man remains composed during Levi's entire tirade before breaking into an infuriatingly handsome grin at the end. "You must be this Levi I hear so much about?"

Levi narrows his eyes. "Fuck."

"Erwin Smith, pleased to meet you."

Levi stares at Erwin's stretched out hand as though as if it is an open, festering wound. He looks up to the man's bright blue eyes and back down to the giant paw a few times before offering his own hand. If Erwin was uncomfortable with the long pause he didn't show it and graciously accepts Levi's extra firm handshake.

Erwin sits down and before Levi can protest he is interrupted by the sound of two distinct chimes. Both men pull their phones out.

Levi has a text from Hanji reading 'Have fun with Erwin!' He tosses his phone on the table and sits back heavily, throwing an arm over the back of his chair with an angry sigh.

Erwin reads his own text, presumably from Mike, out loud as through orating the letters of a 17th century statesman.  "'I got you good, you fucker-- Get some!'" Erwin pauses, frowns, then keeps scrolling, "it goes on for quite a while about what I'm supposed to get."

"So Erwin," Levi keeps his voice flat and robotic like a teenager forced to make conversation with a distant relative, "how do you know Mike and Hanji?"

Erwin has the slightest of smiles as he finally finishes scrolling through Mike's text and tucks his phone into the inside pocket of his jacket. "I went to high school with Mike and graduate school with Hanji."

"Was she always batshit insane?"

"I prefer the label eccentric, but yes."

Levi snorts. "How did you recognize me?"

"Mike said you had a... uh, how did he put it?" He pulls out his phone again and flips through his texts a moment. "Here it is. 'You'll recognize Levi as the twink with the resting bitch face.’"

"I will kill them both." Levi chugs his beer in record time, not caring that Erwin is watching him with one eyebrow raised, or that the man jumps slightly when Levi slams the pint glass down on the table loud enough so that the bar crowd tenses and quiets for a second before resuming its cacophony.

Erwin discreetly orders two more beers with a pointed look and a few twitches of his fingers to the bartender.

"So," he says, placing a full pint of lager in Levi's hands, "I take it that you too have offended others by being single?"

 

 


	2. Little Shadow

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was signing in to AO3 just to look at a friend's work I'm beta-ing and I read all the comments from the first chapter and it warmed my heart suddenly I couldn't not post SOMETHING. It's short but it's all I have to give you lovely people.

 " _Patience, shadow. With all your sight, there's no sight to see."_

 

* * *

 

Levi is nothing like Erwin expected.

For years he had listened to Mike and Hanji's dramatic re-enactments of "Classic Levi" anecdotes, usually featuring impossible fight scenes peppered with colourful expletives that always managed to reduce the pair to tears of laughter. And they always ended each ridiculous story with the same disclaimer as they wiped their eyes and caught their breath: "Seriously though, we love the guy." This aside had always perplexed Erwin, who thought this Levi sounded like a complete asshole with a Napoleon complex. Recently though, from the moment Erwin regained his bachelorhood and accepted a position at the University of Sina, the narrative had shifted slightly from "Classic Levi" to Hanji's speculations on the man's previous relationships and what exactly Mike would do to Levi if Mike was indeed gay. So Erwin saw this set up coming a mile away and did his best to brace himself.

But this Levi sitting at a table in the back corner, this black haired, birdlike creature with a sharp jaw line, thin neck and protruding clavicle-- this couldn't be Levi. This Levi's hands were shaking slightly every time he picked up his glass. This Levi's skin was translucent to the point that Erwin could clearly follow the path of veins under skin and the dark shadows under his eyes made his gray irises appear to glow in the low light of the bar. This Levi had a low, velvet voice and a sharp tongue that was talented at redirecting the conversation away from himself which, of course, only made Erwin want to know more. 

 

* * *

 

Levi usually doesn't drink much-- his five foot two frame made him a lightweight-- but somehow neither his glass nor his wallet became empty that night.

Levi doesn't know why the man is still here and still talking to him. He's much too good looking to be in this bar, this town, this state even, and he spoke carefully and slowly as though he were reporting on public radio. What were Hanji and Mike thinking? Levi knew full well that he was a rude little shit that could only be tolerated by terrifying eccentrics (Hanji, Eren) and pot smoking pacifists with Buddha-like patience (Mike and his wife Nanaba, Hanji's partner Moblit).

Occasionally men sought him out because he was small with feminine features and looked like someone they could easily dominate in the bedroom, but once Levi opened his mouth, those types usually went running. But here Erwin was smiling between slips of beer like an old friend and Levi wasn't even sure what they were talking about but words were spilling from his lips at record speeds.

"I always feel like I should pull Moblit aside to make sure he isn't being held against his will," he finds himself saying and Erwin laughs, perfect white teeth flashing.

Levi can feel the heat rising to his face and his stomach lurches forward. He mumbles something about piss and excuses himself and it's not until he is alone in the bathroom, splashing cold water on his face, that Levi realizes he is drunk. So very, very drunk.

 

* * *

The Bartender turns on the unflattering overhead lights to signal last call while Levi is in the bathroom and the sudden brightness feels like a spell has been broken. Erwin stands and stretches before putting his blazer back on and checking his phone: five texts and two missed calls from Mike, one text and six missed calls from Hanji. He reads his texts and checks the time-- Levi has been gone for nearly ten minutes now-- and Erwin is just texting that he'll call Mike tomorrow when Levi finally emerges from the bathroom. Erwin smiles awkwardly as Levi makes his way to him and the smaller man matches his unease as he walks, crossing his arms tightly front of his chest before stopping in front of Erwin.

"I thought for a minute you'd crawled out the window." Erwin tries to keep his voice light, but it still sounds a bit accusatory to even his own ears.

"I just had to take a really, big shit." Levi's voice was a little too loud and several customers turned their heads to look at him. He looks around like he never realised how filthy this bar was until all the overhead lights were on. Everything looks sticky. There is broken glass and cigarette butts on the floor and someone had either gotten sick or spilled jambalaya on the pool table. He doesn't realise Erwin is speaking to him until the other man's fingers were under his chin to gently tip his head upwards.

Levi jumps back at the touch launching himself backwards into a table piled with empty pint glasses. Erwin reaches out to pull him back but Levi managed to right himself and table at the same time like some sort of suave, drunk ninja.

"Sorry."

"I'm sorry-- I shouldn't have."

They stare at each other, Erwin's blue eyes cast down to Levi's gray eyes. Erwin clears his throat. "I was just asking if I could give you a ride home?"

"I rode my bike."

"We could put it in my trunk."

"I'll walk it home." It's sounds so dumb and brutal and final out of his mouth that there's nothing left for the two of them to do than to step into the cold winter's night.

As they walk down the pub steps together, Erwin swears that Levi is pressing his body into his side. He places a hand on the small of other man's back, lightly, moments before they part ways. Erwin's arm is still warm as he watches the Levi slowly retreat, pushing his bike dutifully home as it begins to snow.

"Goodnight Levi."

 

* * *

 Levi sits at his kitchen table and stares at his reflection in the window above the sink. Backlit by the warm yellow lights inside against the dark outside, his face in the window appears younger, smoother, less tired. As soon as he got home, he stripped himself of his work clothes, took a hot shower, and now, hair still wet, he just stares into his own eyes while flipping a phone between his fingers like a baton.

_"Goodnight Levi."_

The phone slips from his fingers and clatters the floor. When Levi bends over to pick it up, he hits his head on the kitchen table. He scolds his reflection for being such a child.

He's too old to get drunk and press himself against strange men and pretend like he was just like everyone else and smile and start carrying Imodium in his wallet and say things like 'my place or yours' and have his stomach flip with just the thought of someone...but that HAND, that fucking bear claw of a hand that that nearly stretched the entirety of his back, the pressure of it derailed him completely.

He wanted to go home with Erwin. He hasn't wanted to go home with someone for a long time.

When Levi's phone chimes a few moments later, he heart stops for the second time that night.  Three texts from an unknown number appear in quick secession on his screen.

_Hi Levi, this is Erwin Smith._

_I enjoyed your company tonight and like to see you again_

_If that's okay with you?_

Levi's face burned with second-hand embarrassment, unsure how to respond to such a formal request.  He consults his equally flustered reflection but finds no answers there. He takes several deep breaths and types out his reply with a single, shaking finger.

_I'd like that_

What was this, Dawson's Creek? Delete.

_That would be fine_

Slightly better but not terribly enthusiastic. Delete.

Finally, he simply types "Yes" and throws the phone onto the kitchen table before rushing into the bedroom so he can die of embarrassment and face the consequences of his actions tomorrow.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and gentle critiques appreciated x


End file.
